Longwood residents say interstate construction caused flooding

LONGWOOD, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Bob and Karen Blaydes aren’t blaming Hurricane Irma for their flooded property on Lake Oaks Boulevard in Longwood.

“It’s just an overwhelming amount of water that obviously came from the failure of that retention pond,” said Bob Blaydes.

They’re blaming a retention pond that was built as part of the I-4 Ultimate construction.

“We know that it wasn’t just water coming from rain, we know that it was gushing onto our property, and so that made it more frustrating,” said Karen Blaydes.

Traveling down I-4 eastbound you can see the retention pond to the right -- after Hurricane Irma they say it overflowed into a the lake across from their home, eventually causing waist high water inside the house they were renting out to tenants.

“Somebody didn’t build this properly, therefor there was a breach, therefore we were flooded,” said Ashley Kinchen, who lives next door.

The Kinchen family is in the same boat, their family of five was displaced from their home.

“We just want some department to take responsibility,” Kinchen said.

Florida Department of Transportation officials say their engineers are investigating if there was a possible breach.

“That new retention pond was actually part of the I4 project, and so the concern that the neighbors have is that there was some sort of breach or overflow that caused all this we don’t know that for sure,” said Steve Olson with FDOT.

Olson says they met with the affected families this morning and are working towards a solution

“ We want to find out the mechanics of what actually caused this and how to prevent that from happening again because the I-4 project continues,” Olson said.